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What's wrong with our offense?

Let me first start off this post on a more positive note as to limit the possible misconstrued notion that I'm a pessimistic pacer fan with no faith whatsoever in my hometown team. That isn't the case at all.

First, our defense has been impressive. It's reminding me a lot of the 03-04 post season defense, when we rarely let our opponents get to 90 points, let alone 80. At this very moment, we lead the league in rebounding, are top 5 in steals and blocks, and are holding our opponents to a very low FG%.

THERE! I got the positive stuff out of the way. Like I said, a few aspects are surprising me so far this year that I'm very happy with.

The only thing that concerns me is the offensive side of the floor. It just bugs me that we can't score against teams like Toronto, Detroit, or Cleveland, teams who aren't notoriously known for defense.

Wasn't it just last year we were scoring 144 points against a top 10 defensive team? Wasn't it just last year we beat the Lakers at Staples Center for the first time in Pacers franchise history? The offensive side of the floor is what kept us in the games against the better teams. Shooters such as Mike Dunleavy, Brandon Rush, and Aj Price always gave us a boost in that area. Let's not forget about the passing we're missing from Josh McRoberts(he's averaging 5 assists with the lakers at the moment).

Ball movement for us is incredibly rare this season. We also aren't seeing a lot of OFF the ball movement, from anyone. So how is it our team has changed this much? Why can't we score? I'm having a hard time believing the losses of Dunleavy and Rush would make much of a difference, even though they were our only PURE shooters on the team.

We will continue beating the average/mediocre teams with this kind of rebounding and defense, but without a pure shooter, lack of ball movement on and off the ball, we will NOT even have a chance to beat the elite teams in the league.

So...first things first.

We....need....A SHOOTER!

Who agrees? Anyone?

Last edited by ThatPacerFan; 12-31-2011 at 04:59 PM.

"A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals."
-Larry Bird

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

God have mercy on whichever team plays us the night we can't miss. I think our offense is decidedly unspectacular, but I don't think it's terrible, either. This will straighten itself out at some point.

But we could use another high-quality scorer, though. I still wish Crawford had decided to join the fun. Oh well. I think we may still get someone later. Hell, we probably need to.

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Re: What's wrong with our offense?

I think we just need some time to gel together. Once DW and GH play together with the rest of our guys they will find which ways to get them in better scoring positions where they are comfortable on the floor. It would be nice to have a true scorer off of the bench as long as we don't have to break off any of our core. Crawford would have been nice, but if there is anyway we could still land Mayo with giving up little I would rather go in that direction.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

God have mercy on whichever team plays us the night we can't miss. I think our offense is decidedly unspectacular, but I don't think it's terrible, either. This will straighten itself out at some point.

But we could use another high-quality scorer, though. I still wish Crawford had decided to join the fun. Oh well. I think we may still get someone later. Hell, we probably need to.

I think our offense is extremely predictable. We don't run as much as we did in the O'Brien days (I think we could, and should, run more), so what usually happens is we dribble down the court and try to force it inside to Roy, West, or Tyler, and they do their thing and if it fails, we pass the ball out and someone like Granger or Hill penetrates into mid-range jumpshot range and tosses up a contested jumper. I think we need to run a few more plays, and run a few plays specifically for George. Oh, and we need someone who is better at creating their own offense.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

Let me first start off this post on a more positive note as to limit the possible misconstrued notion that I'm a pessimistic pacer fan with no faith whatsoever in my hometown team. That isn't the case at all.

First, our defense has been impressive. It's reminding me a lot of the 03-04 post season defense, when we rarely let our opponents get to 90 points, let alone 80. At this very moment, we lead the league in rebounding, are top 5 in steals and blocks, and are holding our opponents to a very low FG%.

THERE! I got the positive stuff out of the way. Like I said, a few aspects are surprising me so far this year that I'm very happy with.

The only thing that concerns me is the offensive side of the floor. It just bugs me that we can't score against teams like Toronto, Detroit, or Cleveland, teams who aren't notoriously known for defense.

Wasn't it just last year we were scoring 144 points against a top 10 defensive team? Wasn't it just last year we beat the Lakers at Staples Center for the first time in Pacers franchise history? The offensive side of the floor is what kept us in the games against the better teams. Shooters such as Mike Dunleavy, Brandon Rush, and Aj Price always gave us a boost in that area. Let's not forget about the passing we're missing from Josh McRoberts(he's averaging 5 assists with the lakers at the moment).

Ball movement for us is incredibly rare this season. We also aren't seeing a lot of OFF the ball movement, from anyone. So how is it our team has changed this much? Why can't we score? I'm having a hard time believing the losses of Dunleavy and Rush would make much of a difference, even though they were our only PURE shooters on the team.

We will continue beating the average/mediocre teams with this kind of rebounding and defense, but without a pure shooter, lack of ball movement on and off the ball, we will NOT even have a chance to beat the elite teams in the league.

So...first things first.

We....need....A SHOOTER!

Who agrees? Anyone?

Offense is a concern for me as well. No Rush and Dunleavy hurts our perimeter game but Rush needed a change of scenery, as he was not doing us a whole lot of good, and well Dunleavy couldn't guard the waterboy. I think our offense will improve and ultimately defense will get you farther than offense does. While Detroit does suck, both Cleveland and Toronto are much improved teams. They still will be on the bottom end of the league in wins thou. While I won't miss Dunleavy one bit, I do miss Rush's ability to play solid D and knock down jumpers. I do think what were seeing in GS with Rush is a renewed interest and fresh start. Not positive if he was stilll here we would be seeing that out of him.

When I die I want to be buried upside down so all my critics can kiss my @$$ - Bobby Knight

I would walk thru hell in a gasoline suit to play the game of baseball - Pete Rose

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Re: What's wrong with our offense?

One thing that I've noticed with Paul George, is that he isn't attacking the basket like he did during the Preseason games. He kind of just wants to settle for shooting threes or something so he runs over to the three Point line and just stands there. Also, his guy is defending him easily since he's just standing there, so he has to pass anyway if he even gets the ball.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

I think our offense is extremely predictable. We don't run as much as we did in the O'Brien days (I think we could, and should, run more), so what usually happens is we dribble down the court and try to force it inside to Roy, West, or Tyler, and they do their thing and if it fails, we pass the ball out and someone like Granger or Hill penetrates into mid-range jumpshot range and tosses up a contested jumper. I think we need to run a few more plays, and run a few plays specifically for George. Oh, and we need someone who is better at creating their own offense.

Frank already said our offense is way behind the defense. Clearly he needs a little time to work on it. He hasn't even had a preseason. ...and he deserves that time considering he took us to the playoffs for the first time since Rick Carlisle AND he's undefeated this year.

Also, with David West and Roy Hibbert, this isn't a running team. This is a half-court, smash-mouth playoff team. I think Frank's said that about 1000 times. No more soft players who over-use the three because it's about winning now. Crashing the boards, owning the paint and defending is what this team is about now. No more sub .500 Jim O'Brien "coached" teams...

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

I think our offense is extremely predictable. We don't run as much as we did in the O'Brien days (I think we could, and should, run more), so what usually happens is we dribble down the court and try to force it inside to Roy, West, or Tyler, and they do their thing and if it fails, we pass the ball out and someone like Granger or Hill penetrates into mid-range jumpshot range and tosses up a contested jumper. I think we need to run a few more plays, and run a few plays specifically for George. Oh, and we need someone who is better at creating their own offense.

Yeah it's almost like Vogel is telling them not to shoot any outside J's unless the shot-clock is running down. I think if George Hill, Danny, or PG is open they might as well shoot it

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

We are still missing the consistent outside threat. After the Toronto game I thought PG was going to be that guy, but he wasn't that guy last night. He still can become that guy he just needs to do it on a consistent basis.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

Frank already said our offense is way behind the defense. Clearly he needs a little time to work on it. He hasn't even had a preseason. ...and he deserves that time considering he took us to the playoffs for the first time since Rick Carlisle AND he's undefeated this year.

Also, with David West and Roy Hibbert, this isn't a running team. This is a half-court, smash-mouth playoff team. I think Frank's said that about 1000 times. No more soft players who over-use the three because it's about winning now. Crashing the boards, owning the paint and defending is what this team is about now. No more sub .500 Jim O'Brien "coached" teams...

I wasn't criticizing. I was just answering the question posed in the topic of this thread. I fully expect him to add stuff as the season goes on.

I'm not advocating that we run like we did with Obie, but pushing the tempo can lead to easy baskets to give the offense a little flow. I don't think we should use it as a primary weapon, but as a tool to get the offense and momentum going.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

I wasn't criticizing. I was just answering the question posed in the topic of this thread. I fully expect him to add stuff as the season goes on.

I'm not advocating that we run like we did with Obie, but pushing the tempo can lead to easy baskets to give the offense a little flow. I don't think we should use it as a primary weapon, but as a tool to get the offense and momentum going.

I think I can buy this. A little balance is always a good thing. The Spurs actually are my personal favorite and they did run it a little. But their specialty was ball movement along with usage of some of the unique skills of their players. Duncan could go to the glass and score at will. We need Roy to work on that IMHO. DC could play the part of Tony Parker with the occasional drive up the gut, but we need better ball movement and spacing to do that. It doesn't have to be three point line type spacing. West and Tyler and even Hibbert are all very good from midrange. This would also open up the paint for Tyler to bull his way in for an And-One. So, IMO, a good offense isn't JOb ball and it's not "throw it into JO" ball either. A good offense is what we had with the Pacers in the 90's where we moved the ball and found the open man. It takes basketball skills to do that and they were exceptional at it.

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Re: What's wrong with our offense?

offensively, the pacers do need to run more. PG is fast, hill is very fast and DC is very very fast. it is silly not to use the talents they have. but to run, the bigs have to get the ball into play quickly after a rebound. right now, out bigs massage the ball like it is their girlfriend/wife after each rebound. pacers need to get the ball down court more quickly.

running points are the free points in the NBA. defenses are not set and there arn't very many people back. not taking advantage of that is silly. fwiw, saying the pacers should not do it because JOB's teams did it is even sillier. nor does running effect the half court offense that much. if you try to run and can't, you still have time to run the half-court offense anyway.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

offensively, the pacers do need to run more. PG is fast, hill is very fast and DC is very very fast. it is silly not to use the talents they have. but to run, the bigs have to get the ball into play quickly after a rebound. right now, out bigs massage the ball like it is their girlfriend/wife after each rebound. pacers need to get the ball down court more quickly.

running points are the free points in the NBA. defenses are not set and there arn't very many people back. not taking advantage of that is silly. fwiw, saying the pacers should not do it because JOB's teams did it is even sillier. nor does running effect the half court offense that much. if you try to run and can't, you still have time to run the half-court offense anyway.

I agree with this. Anytime you can get out and push it for a easy bucket its a good thing. If you dont have something pull it back out and run the offense. Its early not much practice and I look for this team to improve offensively as the season goes on. Being in the East is a plus thou because other than Miami and Chicago no one else is really that much better than us. If Roy continues being dominate and just does not do it against weak teams we could beat the Bulls by bullying them as they dont like physical play.

When I die I want to be buried upside down so all my critics can kiss my @$$ - Bobby Knight

I would walk thru hell in a gasoline suit to play the game of baseball - Pete Rose

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

We're a very bad offensive team right now. That is just a fact. A big part of that is Grange rbeing inconsistent and Paul George doing his best Keith Bogans impression...only without the ability to shoot open 3s.

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

So are we generally on the page of we are simply shooting poorly or our dreadful shooting percentages (Here's looking at you, Tyler.) are a result of a bad offense where players aren't getting the ball in places to score?

Re: What's wrong with our offense?

Collison does not know how to run a pick and roll. Hill is much better at it. I don't want to hear how great Collison and West were in New Orleans. This is here and now.

This is one thing I don't understand. If Collison and West were so good when they were playing together in New Orleans, why can't they do it now? Judging by the 4 games so far, DC doesn't even pass to West that often.